User blog:Hypixel's Server Wikia Editor/Guidelines to good grammar and formulating
Lots of us tend to make spelling mistakes, and that is totally fine. What we need to pay close attention to are grammar mistakes and formulating issues. In this blog post, I will explain how to avoid common formulating issues. What is formulating ? Basically, it is the correct usage of the words within a sentence. This does not involve grammar, but a certain feeling of language. If you take a close look at the next 30 formulating issues, you will understand the meaning of formulation. These issues are very common in our daily language, and can only be prevented by thinking about what you are saying. 1. Tautological usage. This is about two synonymes used to define one word. Example : "That bearded man with a beard walks over there." Correct form : "That bearded man walks over there." You can leave one of the two synonymes out correct this. 2. Pleonasm. A pleonasm is the opposite of a tautological usage. This is about two words, one of which describes a condition of the other word which is always true. Example : "The wet water is very cold." Correct form : "The water is very cold". You can leave out the odd word to correct this. 3. Contamination. A contamination is a saying that is very common to us, but is actually made of two sayings. Example : "The mother looked out after her missing son." Correct form : "The mother looked out for her missing son." Here, the sayings "look out for" and "look after" have been scrambled. You can correct this by using one of the two sayings or collocations. 4. Archaism. An archaism is a very old word, such as thou. These words should not be used when writing a normal story. Example : "Thou have eaten my breakfast." Correct form : "You have eaten my breakfast.". You can correct this by seeking a synonym used nowadays. 5. Neologism. A neologism is the opposite of an archaism, this is a word the writer invents himself. Example : "The cutthroatmurderer cuts his victims' throats". Correct form : "The murderer kills his victims by cutting their throats." You can correct this by altering the form of the sentence or using a preposition. 6. Onomatope. An onomatope is the expression of a sound written down. Example : "The lion raaawred at the public." Correct form : "The lion growled at the public." You can correct this by telling what happened without precisely mentioning the sound. 7. Wrong ellipsis. An ellipsis is the removal of two words that are the same, such as "He has eaten and lunched". An ellipsis is only wrong when the left-out verbs do not match or if the ellipsis scrambles the word order. Example : "I love Stacy and to eat my muesli." Correct form : "I love Stacy and I love to eat my muesli." You can correct this by removing the whole ellipsis. 8. "That-if construction". This construction is very common in our language usage, and it is unknown why we use it. Example : "I remember, that if we play with fire, we will burn ourselves." Correct form : "I remember, that we will burn ourselves, if we play with fire." You can correct this by placing the "that-sentence" before the "if-sentence". 9. Wrong gender. The natural gender of a being is more important than the grammatical gender of a word. The natural gender is the gender of a being in nature : a boy is male and a girl is female. The grammatical gender is most likely the same as the natural gender, but at some points words as "dog" do not have a gender, it could be male or female, so it is adressed as "it". A cow is female and therefore she is adressed as 'she'. Example : "The cat was fighting the rooster. I did not like it, so I decided to eat it." Correct form : "The cat was fighting the rooster. I did not like him, so I decided to eat him." You refer to the cat as 'it', because the cat could be either male or female. The rooster must be male, so he is adressed as 'he'. You can correct this by thinking about whether the gender of a being is clear or not. 10. Self-binding sentences. These sentences are very dangerous to use, becuase you will most likely use it in the wrong way. It is a sentence which describes a condition, an opposition or a result without using an object and a verb. Instead, it uses a participium. Here is an example : "Having put your clothes on the table". We see a participium as well as no object. We can now use this sentence in a number of ways, such as : "Having put your clothes on the table, you can come with us." Here, this self-binder is not wrong, although it may seem very peculiar. Let us now look at a wrong self-binder : "Having met her fans and enjoyed the hotel, the airplane took off." Correct form : "After the actress had met her fans en enjoyed the hotel, the airplane took off." Because you cannot link the self-binders to any element, it must belong to the airplane, so the airplane had met its fans and enjoyed the hotel. The object is hidden inside the self-binder, but is not mentioned, and does not exist. To correct this, make a sentence with a linking word instead of a self-binder. Note : this construction originates from the Latin and is absolutely not wrong. For more information and funny sentences, check the Ablativus Absolutus construction. These are the most common mistakes made while writing an article. If you are interested in this, i will send you the other 20 formulating mistakes. Please, correct a wiki article if you see such a mistake, it could be very helpful to readers that understand it just the other way. Category:Blog posts